Etymologies

Examples

Whether it was the extermination of native Americans, support of rightwing tyrants who uttered those three magic words "I hate Communism", secret medical experiments on U.S. citizens, or collateral damage to civilian populations during wars, we seem to have little capacity for sustained self-recrimination.

This defensive psychological distancing lasts about 19 seconds, before being swept away by a burst of intense self-recrimination, during which you feel like pulling your own brain out and spanking it over your knee.

Yet, with her poignant descriptions of a much-loved little girl who grew up to be a troubled but still cherished woman, Ms. Didion has created something luminous amid her self-recrimination and sorrow.

Perhaps they snigger a little at his account of tripping and falling into a lifeboat "How odd that his first officer seems to have done the same thing", but on the whole they understand the torrent of guilt and self-recrimination that must threaten to overwhelm him, first for losing a ship and so many lives and, second, for his subsequent behaviour.